Tag Archives: HRT

Bruno Senna believes that his HRT team are off to a “great start” following their maiden run in Bahrain today.

Senna set 3 installation laps in the first session, and 17 in the second. He finished 11 seconds off the pace of the leaders. Despite this, Senna believes that it is a relief to finally hit the track:

"It was certainly a relief to make history this morning. The car ran
as planned and everyone is happy and proud. There is still a lot of
work ahead of us.
Three laps this morning and seventeen this afternoon is a great start.
Of course, we could not try the car at its limits.
I am confident that we will be working ahead and I want to congratulate
my mechanics, engineers and the whole team for their incredible hard
work."

Eh, sure. If you were watching Friday practice live today (a true F1 fan would!), you would have seen the huge problems Senna faced. First of all, on the onboard cameras, we saw him fighting for control even in the slow sections of the lap. On the external cameras, the car’s suspension looked all over the place, when examined closely.

I suppose the firing up and first running of the car is an achievment, but it should not be one that should be taken as any form of success in Formula 1. They were 11 seconds off the pace, for gods sake. Jean Todt has said that he wants the 107% rule reinstated (post coming up in a few minutes about this), and hopefully this should make sure that the “great start” for HRT doesn’t turn out to be a complete liability.

Even though HRT are yet to even set a single lap in their car, Bruno Senna seems confident of a good start to the season, saying that their car is up to a second faster than the Virgin and Lotus counterparts.

According to Senna, this is becasue the data accumulated in the Jerez and Barcelona tests by Virgin and Lotus have already been acquired by HRT. He said:

"Lotus and Virgin were in Barcelona, just a good second faster than
the GP2 cars, of which Dallara has all the data.
According to their calculations, we should be faster than the GP2
cars right away, by two seconds...of course, much will also depend
on whether the car is stable from the beginning, to some extent.
I hope that we will be ahead; firstly because of the experience of
the Dallara men and secondly because we might have a little luck in
the way of some problems hitting the other teams again, particularly
with the hydraulics (as in testing)."

I suppose that there is truth in what Bruno is saying here, but having never driven the car, how does he know that the car won’t explode every race? Reliability can’t be made from data, it’s done by testing out on track, and that’s what HRT completely lacks.

Virgin seem to have sorted their front wing and hydraulic problems, while Lotus have fixed most of their difficulties as well. HRT may be faster, but a string of technical issues is what I think will happen in Bahrain next weekend.

The HRT Formula 1 team have unveiled their F1 car, and confirmed their second driver as Karun Chandhok, only 8 days before the season begins in Bahrain.

The car was entirely designed by Dallara. However, when getting the car, HRT then proceeded to do absolutely nothing in terms of an interesting livery. First of all, it’s grey and greyer. Then, there are no sponsors at all, apart from Bruno Senna’s sponsor Embratel. I’ll look forward to not seeing it at all in Bahrain, as hopefully the cameras will focus on something more interesting, and quite a bit quicker as well.

On a slightly nicer note, Karun Chandhok was revealed alongside the new HRT car as their second driver for the season. Colin Kolles had this to say about the Indian driver:

"I am very pleased to use the Murcia site to officially unveil our
car livery today. We also complete the driver's team line-up with
the Indian Karun Chandhok at the wheel of the car for our first ever
season.
We have been very impressed with Karun's performance in GP2. India
is a great country. It will be great for the sport to have an Indian
driver on the grid for the first Indian Grand Prix. Murcia is part
of the roots of the team.
Everything is now in place after an impossible race against time to
register the team's name and I truly believe that we have an
excellent platform to build on and move forward for a strong 2010
performance. Now, we need to work together. We need to learn
together and keep developing as a team."

The team chairman, Jose Ramon Carabante, added:

"The new HRT F1 Team, Hispania Racing F1 Team is born in Murcia. I
am proud to welcome you in Murcia where the team has its roots and
to have given to my country the pride of the first ever Spanish
Formula 1 team.
The name of the team contains the word Hispania, which is not only
the name of one of my companies, but Hispania was also the Roman name
for the Iberian Peninsula. That reflects now our team's new identity.
2010 will be a major debut for the team and drivers at the wheel of
our HRT F1 Team car."

Karun Chandhok is also the latest driver to feature on Twitter. His profile is available here.

This signing also means that there are now no more seats to fill for the 2010 season, with only a few reserve places yet to be confirmed. The disallowance of Stefan GP means that Jacques Villeneuve is unable to race in 2010, alongside Jose Maria Lopez, who was without a drive after the collapse of USF1.

The Campos Meta team has officially changes its name to HRT – Hispania Racing Team.

It’s a pretty bad name, let’s be honest. Anyone who follows the Australian V8 Championship will know of the Holden Racing Team, which happens to be a support race at the Australian Grand Prix. And if you’re not following motorsport, you’ll know of HRT as Hormone Replacement Therapy. Very nice move from Carabante and Kolles.

Their website has now changed into a holding page, which means it should be back up when it is changed to look like Hispania Racing (I’m not using the HRT name yet!)

The main problem for the team is that they have completely missed the testing season. According to Adam Cooper, their car will be officially presented tomorrow, only 8 days before practice sessions begin for the Bahrain Grand Prix.